News from Liberty King (Nugent 13)
14 March 2018
One week after finishing my final examination at Oxford, I started a six week course of accelerated teacher training with Teach First: a social enterprise that addresses educational disadvantage in England and Wales. I immediately realised, on my first day of teaching, how underprivileged some of the students were when I asked my first Year 8 class to write down what they did over the summer, and gave an example of going on holiday. One student commented that they have never even been to the seaside in England, let alone to a beach in another country. “Actually Miss” they said “I’ve never been further than the town centre”. Heartbreakingly, this is much the same for a huge proportion of our country’s children.
I decided to embark on my journey in education due to my own educational experience. After having gone to a state school in Milton Keynes for most of my life, I was extremely lucky to receive an academic scholarship to Stowe for the last two years of my education, accompanied with a very generous bursary that allowed me to attend. The opportunities available to me at Stowe were second-to-none and I often wonder how much these opportunities had a bearing on my success in gaining a place at Oxford.
Therefore, I have had the interesting privilege of being able to witness first-hand the difference in the quality of education that is available to children in the UK based on how wealthy their parents are: something very few people are able to experience. The reality of witnessing how varied education can be, even in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, has sparked my passion to be a leader in education and work towards a society where no child is deprived of opportunity due to their socio-economic background.
This passion has led to my recent acceptance to Harvard University to study International Education Policy. The course perfectly combines my passion for tackling educational inequality and my desire to learn about different cultures; in particular, the challenges that are faced in education systems around the globe. I am incredibly excited about this opportunity and I am looking forward to studying with other future educational leaders.
Due to my own profound experiences, my aim is to work towards reducing the correlation between wealth and academic success in education systems around the world. Ideally, I want to work on influencing policy in a country that has one of the largest wealth disparities, such as South Africa, and ensure that the educational policy is not a reflection of their wealth distribution.
I am incredibly passionate about education and there is no doubt in my mind that I will spend my life striving to inspire young people to push far beyond their perceived limitations. My personal experiences, as well as all that I have witnessed in time spent working and volunteering with disadvantaged children, have compounded my feelings of injustice about the correlation between socio-economic background and educational success. I feel it is my duty as an educated professional to strive for children globally to have more equal access to life enhancing opportunities regardless of their socio-economic background. Therefore, I am going to make it my life’s work to make an impact in education on an international scale, with Harvard bringing me one step closer to making that dream a reality.
I am currently in the process of exploring funding options to help with the huge costs of US graduate study and would love to receive any advice or guidance from current or Old Stoics. If you would like to contact me further about this, or about my experiences in general, please email king.liberty@gmail.com